I'd definitely love to hear how it works for your area!
Book clubs are such a good thing for the community and doing manga ones genuinely sound fun

If it's a physical book, it depends. I will say I won't dnf it but will end up doing it after months of not touching it. For audio books, I'll push through and if it's a series, I won't finish it.

I do hope you like at least a few of these!! There's so many different anime out there that it's truly an adventure finding your corner of favorites

Subtitles. I have a belief (whether it's true or not) that the creators do choose who they want to act/voice for the characters they created. For dubbings, the creators don't get to pick and it's up to the localization team so the creator's vision of their characters can get lost

The rest of them should be on Crunchyroll! Though I'm not sure about Whisper of the Heart. It's on Max for sure but I think hulu and prime too? I'm not sure since I own all the physical ghibli movies and watch them on DVD if I go to watch them

Toilet Bound Hanako-Kun is a hit or miss for if you'll like it.
If you want non-fantasy romance, I also highly recommend Whisper of the Heart (ghibli), Skip and Loafer, and My Little Monster. I always have so many recs but of course my brain is blank beyond these ;-;

Possibility A Place Further than the Universe (girls making their way to Antarctica). Frieren (fantasy, sprinkle of romance, emotional but beautiful), Duke of Death and His Maid (High risk fantasy romance), My Happy Marriage (fantasy, old japan Cinderella retelling, #1 on this list)